MenEngage Alliance -South Asia

About MenEngage

MenEngage Alliance has a strong presence in South Asia since 2004, where it is known as ‘MenEngage Alliance South Asia’. The regional alliance has its governance structure in place and is governed by a regional steering committee. Regional Steering Committee members include from Bangladesh- Centre for Men and Masculinities Studies, BRAC, Family Planning Association of Bangladesh; from India- Centre for Health and Social Justice (CHSJ); Society for Social Uplift Through Rural Action (SUTRA) and Ekta and Dr. Mangesh Kulkarni from academia; from Nepal- Institute of Human Rights Communication Nepal, Jagaran Nepal and Nepal SamacharPatra; from Pakistan- AMAL Human Development, ROZAN, Rutgers World Population Foundation and Save the Children International and IPPF SARO as South Asian regional agencies. Center for Health and Social Justice (CHSJ) hosts the secretariat of the Regional Alliance and co-ordinates the regional alliance in South Asia. Through country-level and regional alliances, MenEngage Alliance South Asia seeks to provide a collective voice on the need to engage men and boys in gender equality and addressing masculinities, to build and improve the field of practice around engaging men and boys in gender justice, and advocating before policymakers at the local, national, and regional levels.

MenEngage Global Alliance

About MenEngage

MenEngage is a global alliance of NGOs and UN agencies that seeks to engage boys and men to achieve gender equality. International Steering Committee Members include Sonke Gender Justice Network (co-chair), Promundo (co-chair), EngenderHealth, Family Violence Prevention Fund, International Center for Research on Women , International Planned Parenthood Federation, Men’s Resources International (United States), Salud y Genero (Mexico), Save the Children-Sweden, Sahoyog, White Ribbon Campaign, WHO, UNDP, UNFPA and UNIFEM.

At the national level, members include more than 400 NGOs from Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Asia and Europe. The Alliance came together in 2004 with the general goal of working in partnership to promote the engagement of men and boys in achieving gender equality, promoting health and reducing violence at the global level, including questioning the structural barriers to achieving gender equality.

Need for a Global Alliance

Work with men has demonstrated significant potential in encouraging men’s positive roles in building gender equality and improving men’s and women’s health. However, most work with men has been local in scale and limited in scope. To be effective at the societal level – to transform the pervasive gender inequalities which characterise nations and regions around the world – work with men will need to be scaled up. We believe that this means embedding such work into public policy and working with the women’s rights movement to move the issue ahead. MenEngage was formed as a civil society and UN process to advocate collectively toward this end.